By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Micro Business Award
Big Little Brush
Sponsor: Star News Group
A social enterprise selling eco-friendly toothbrushes is donating half its profits towards health programs in remote indigenous communities.
Big Little Brush, based in Cranbourne West, took out the Micro Business Award for 2022 with its positive pro-social and pro-environment program.
Its bamboo toothbrushes bio-degrade in 12 months, compared to plastic ones that can linger for between 600 to 1000 years.
“We’ve so far saved over 15,000 plastic toothbrushes from entering landfill or our oceans,” co-founder Joel Hanna says.
“Our quick maths says conservatively we’ve stopped those plastic brushes from creating around nine million years of plastic waste.”
Most are sold directly and delivered in multi-packs, plastic-free, in Australia and New Zealand. Shipping is free in Australia.
It also supports charities Red Dust and Children’s Ground, which provide health and hygiene programs in remote indigenous communities.
In those parts, the community shop would typically sell toothbrushes for up to $15 and toothpaste for $12.
Big Little Brush, by providing its toothbrushes, helped to put dental hygiene in reach.
Established in 2017, Big Little Brush has achieved much after being founded by two part-timers.
But its size means “we constantly need to decide what we’re not going to do rather than what we will do”.
Its guided by values such as “beauty where it counts”, “having fun is funner” and “we’re positive ‘cos why be negative?”.
Big Little Brush was recently certified as a B Corp – which recognises high standards of social, ethical and environmental performance.
